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Baguette dough, final bread texture

Baguette dough, final bread texture

Hi,

This is my first post in this forum. I have been following it silently for quite a while and I was impressed with the quality of bread other forum members post here. I also recently bough a Kenwood Major KM020 and I wanted to try it out with a baguette dough.

While I have been living in Dublin for more than 10 years, I am originally from Italy, where there is a long artisan bread tradition, which means I am kind of found of good bread.

I followed the Hamelmann baguette with poolish recipe , with a final round shape

The fine, regular crumb makes me think that it was overmixed, and the gluten was overdeveloped. This is my go-to baguette formula. I hand mix, using AP flour with around 11.5% protein, and stop well short of full development - with a fold in the middle of the bulk fermentation, it's easy to make the dough too strong. The open 'baguette-style' crumb largely comes from the relatively weak gluten development, especially with this 66% hydration formula. Fold and shape gently. If you overwork it, you'll get a sandwich-bread crumb (but I'll bet it makes great toast!).

You think its wrong with the bread? I know you said the texture, you mean you were expecting better or bigger holes in it? You wanted to have a better, thicker and crunchier crust? Is the miga too dense, to airy, dry?

It looks like it could have been left in the oven a bit longer, but I'm not by any means an experienced baker. I'm originally from Argentina and my father is from England. I love to bake bread and I do a decent job, but like you, always looking to do better and I'm my worst critique.

To me it looks good, I know you said its a baguette type bread, but still looks good to me. I found many times, even though the bread may not look very good, still the taste is very good. Anyway, good luck and keep baking and el pan para mi es molto buono!!

The color says it is reasonably proofed but the lack of rip in the slashes make me think it was on the downside. I tend to side with overworked/overdeveloped but methinks it is was probably formed later than was desirable - i.e. the bulk fermentation was too long. Looks like the hydration was low also - say 65 percent vs. 70 or more???? but I am forced to guess for you don't tell us the proofing times, hydration or other key details.

Thanks for the extra info. For me the info and results still don't quite add up but...that could simply be that I don't make bread that way so it is a new formula to me.

With the data you provide I am fairly confident that the dough is a bit to somewhat overworked. Though I think this is minor I would suggest shortening the mixing time and/or more time at the slower min speed - possibly with a five minute autolyse between the first and second mixing speeds. (But I don't know your mixer so I could be totally wrong.)

I would also suggest pulling your S&Fs (if needed) do a half hour rather than at one hour. Doing the S&F at a half hour will directionally give you a more open crumb. This is probably more important than the mixing. My guess on bulk fermentation is probably wrong but the more overworked the dough is the shorter the bulk ferment should be and the longer the final proof. Given the relatively dry/stiff look of your loaf, you should probably consider shortening the bulk to 1 hour and extend the final proof to 2 1/2 hours IF you keep the same process. (or you could try simply shifting a half hour from the bulk to the final proof but I think you will learn more by making a bigger change in time than a shorter one - if you go too long you can interpolate back. If you make a small change and it is not enough you don't know how big to make the next step.)

But the biggest problem I think is the hydration. I do my loaves at 70 to 72% hydration using AP. At 66 using BF you are WAY drier than what I think is best for giving open crumb which would be in the 74-76% range for BF. Every two percent you increase the hydration will give you a step increase in open crumb structure.

On the whole I think the loaf shows you are close - crumb looks pretty good for an intense mix, lower hydration dough. Each of those my suggestions should help a bit but I would start with hydration.

When Hamelman refers to "bread flour", he's talking hard winter wheat, around 11.7% protein (right where King Arthur Sir Galahad, aka KA AP) falls. Since he's at King Arthur... Anyhow, 12.7% is too strong for baguette, unless you really undermix it. The dough should feel soft and 'alive', and tacky, after mixing. I like to use the KA Artisan (their T55 clone), which is 11.7% protein, W260. The poolish yeast in your original post is correct at 0.2% (you've got it as 2% in the 'formula' post). Baking it at 235-240 will get you a little more spring, and it will help the crust, too. What are you doing for steam?

I will try to increase the water content from 66% to 70% given that my flour has 12.7gr proteins.

I will also do two batches: Same formula 70% water, two different mixing time, 5 and 10 minutes on my Kenwood Stand Mixer with Dough Spiral Hook, with 1 fold in the middle to see if the crumb will improve

For baking I did not do much, just plance a pot at the bottom of the oven 2 minutes before baking and romoved it after 15 minutes. Can I do any better? I am not sure if I am doing it well - if I place the pot at the bottom of the oven, I believe that the vapour will hit the tray and not dumped the oven much. I have also a vented oven, and I cannot turn the vent off.

I will also see if I can find a lower gluen flour. In Ireland, where I leave, there is not a good selection of flour.

Put a pot in the bottom of the oven and that's it? do you add any hot water to it when you place the bread in the oven? If You just put an empty pot in the oven is not going to produce any steam, I don't know if you were trying to do that or the pot was for another purpose. I'm not sure what were you trying to do with the pot.

I know, a lot of people like to put some sort of metal pan/pot filled with lava rocks and heat it well before baking the bread. Once they got the bread in the oven, you pour a cup of hot water in the pan with the lava rocks, that's going to produce a good amount of steam, and you need to close the oven door quick to keep the steam inside the oven. Check this site or the net for steaming techniques, you'll find tons of info, good luck!

Since you're baking boules, it's probably easier to cover the loaf during the first 15 minutes of the bake instead of trying to steam the entire oven. Search for 'magic bowl' here on TFL; anything from a stainless bowl to a custom-formed foil dome will retain the dough moisture and allow it to self-steam. Given your venting issue, I'd say it's your best bet. You're very close to a very nice loaf!

Do you have a cast iron pan or baking stone? I use a cast iron pan that I place upside down because I don't have a baking stone. I preheat the oven at 500 F and preheat the cast iron pan for about 20 to 30 minutes. Then place a pan with the dough on top of the cast iron pan. The transfer of heat from the cast iron pan to the pan of dough will probably help produce larger holes. I notice that I get larger holes whenever I have something hot underneath the baking sheet. Because I don't have a baking stone, I use a cast iron pan. But you might have to check because sometimes the cast iron pan may be too hot for the baking sheet especially if the baking sheet is too thin. I have thin baking sheets, so I use two baking sheets one on top of the other to prevent scorching at the bottom.

One of the most essential skills in baking bread is "patience". Secondly I would mention "patience". Time is a bread's best friend...up to a point. Be patient and let the yeast work. As for the crumb issue, I would guess that you are rushing things a bit failing to achieve fully proved dough and you may need to handle the dough more gently once it is mixed.

1: Shaping. It looks like you got a nice tight "gluten cloak" on the boule, but tight shaping can mean a longer proof is required (the tight gluten needs more time to relax, so the crumb can inflate to its full potential during oven spring). How did you determine when to bake them? The "poke test" is pretty reliable; watching the clock, less so. I usually put the baguettes in first, and often need to wait after they come out before the boules are ready to bake.

2-3: Crust-to-crumb ratio, bake time & temperature. The baguette has more crust exposed to the hot oven relative to its volume, so it bakes and dries out much more quickly. Boules need a longer bake, at a lower temperature (after the initial spring), to heat them all the way through and drive off enough water. In the second photo, it looks like the knife was pulling at the crumb, like it's still a little damp. As the loaf cools, that retained water migrates to the crust and causes it to soften.

Why did you add all the extra folds? Are you still baking at 200 degrees? I'd give the baguettes around 22 minutes total at 240 c. The boules could probably take 15 minutes at 230, then turn down to 210 and give them another 25 minutes at least. The higher heat will help you get the creamy crumb you're looking for.

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